Home
by forgottenfreedoms
Summary: "You said that the military always needed more doctors. You said that people were dying every day because there weren't enough doctors. You said that Beales had been in the military since the Great War. So I asked you to marry me, hoping that maybe if you were Chloe Mitchell instead of Chloe Beale you wouldn't have to leave..."


**A/N: Hello lovely people! So just a one-shot here for you all. This does not at all tie into Reminder even if it does share a similar format and some nuances here and there. I hadn't meant to write it in the exact same style as my other story, but apparently my mind is still caught in that mode and refused to change anything for a one-shot. So basically I got a page in and realized it was writing itself that way. Again. Sneaky little plot train.**

**Anyways, hope you like it!**

**Beca POV**

My fingers hovered idly above my keyboard, my gaze straight forward. The images on my laptop screen blurred as my eyes abandoned their focus. My pointer finger began tapping steadily to the beat I was supposed to be translating onto the screen with no avail.

I pushed back in my seat, hoping the separation might provide some sense of sanity.

It didn't.

I'm not sure why I thought moving a foot away from my desk would help. My desk wasn't the problem. The song I was having trouble tweaking wasn't the problem. Work wasn't the problem.

My eyes drifted to the large digital clock that rest above my office door. I hated analog clocks, too much thought involved in trying to figure out what the time was. Analog clocks made you think about the time, digital clocks were much more straight forward.

_7:55 PM_

The large numbers told me. I sighed, pushing my hair back messily so it was out of my eyes. I didn't normally work this long but I didn't want to go home tonight. I couldn't go home tonight to an empty house. Not tonight. I had considered sleeping on the comfortable and soft leather couch that took up residence in the corner of my office, but ultimately thought better of it.

It wasn't even that late but considering I hadn't exactly been sleeping that well the past couple of nights I was exhausted.

A knock on the door frame shook me from my thoughts. I looked up to see Jesse lingering in the arch with a small smile on his face.

"Jesse," I started with a smile, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Jesse gave a nod of acknowledgement before making a beeline over to the couch in the corner and flopping unceremoniously onto it. He propped his feet up on the small coffee table in front of him, kicking some of the magazines aside.

"Jesus Jesse, make yourself at home, why don't you," I said while saving the file on my computer and shutting it down quietly. I stood up and walked over to sit beside him, sinking into the well-worn cushions. "You gonna tell me why you're here at 8 on a Thursday?"

"Probably the same reason you're here at 8 on a Thursday," he replied easily, tapping his feet to some unknown beat.

"I thought Aubrey was leaving tomorrow," I mumbled in confusion.

"Meeting got pushed up and my wife is the sexiest woman in the boardroom," he said with a subtle smirk making me realize his thoughts were probably in a completely different place than he was. "They can't have a meeting without the sexiest woman in the boardroom there."

I rolled my eyes, slapping a hand to his shoulder, "You keep telling yourself that."

"Oh I will," he breathed out, a glazed look to his eye. Something told me they had recently made use of the key Aubrey was given to the office. I scrunched my face up in disgust.

Taking in a deep breath, I tousled my hair to the side with one of my free hands. Jesse's shoulder bumped into mine lightly, garnering my attention.

"You good, Mitchell?" He asked, his tone serious.

I gave a mini shrug, not sure how I was supposed to answer the question when he had to know the answer.

"I'll be okay," I said after a minor pause.

"You sure?"

"Yeah," I said as his eyes held mine and searched for any sign that I may be lying. "It just sucks and it's sucked for the past five and a half months and I've known it's going to suck for the past two years. I guess maybe I was too busy thinking about it sucking that I didn't ever consider the magnitude of this particular suckage."

He nodded, looking forward. I turned forward as well. "Hate to be the one to tell you this B," he said his tone serious. "Suckage isn't a word."

"It should be," I retorted quickly.

His lips quirked into a small half-grin and I felt myself smiling back.

"She's going to be pissed if you're still at the office this late, you know that right?" He asked and I nodded.

I knew that. That was the main reason I couldn't spend the night on the perfect couch that was currently forming to my ass.

"Well then you'd better get home, huh?" He turned and gave my knee a light smack with the back of his hand. I nodded again, standing up with some effort before helping him to his feet.

"You sure you're okay? You're normally a little more… animated about your dates although I'm sure that's for reasons I do not want to know," Jesse said, shaking his head vehemently.

He had been my best friend since we were toddlers. We were both only children and lonely ones at that. Both sets of our parents were workaholics that treated us more like inconveniences than children. We easily connected with each other and had been practically siblings from then on. It was nice having someone that felt like family.

While we were always there for each, we tended to soberly skim over the topic of sex whenever possible. It was simply too weird to think of your brother or sister doing the dirty. It brought an instant grimace to my face and to Jesse's as well.

"I'm fine. It's just that today is…" I paused thinking of the proper words, "Today is different and I feel so selfish for even thinking it but I want more. I can't help wanting more and as soon as the date's over I'm just going to sink back into bed alone."

I paused, trying to decipher exactly how I was feeling. "I think… I think maybe I'm mad at her, I think I'm actually mad at her for this and I know that it's completely irrational but I'm actually mad at her for not being here," I admitted sullenly. "I'm mad that she left me here alone on our anniversary."

It was silly. I knew it wasn't rational. When we first started dating, you were in your first year of medical school. It was daunting at first, the time constraints your school and my career put on our relationship, but it worked. It worked and I had never even asked about how you were paying for school because there had never seemed like a good time to bring it up and it didn't seem like something you discussed unless you were in a serious relationship.

When it became serious, or rather when we finally allowed ourselves to realize it had probably been serious from the very beginning, I carefully broached the topic of how you were affording medical school and still living in an apartment that didn't have drug dealers down the hall. You simply replied that you weren't. You couldn't afford school and the only reason you were even able to enroll was because of a scholarship.

You changed the subject after and looking back I couldn't blame you. We had been together for eight months at the time and discussing the true nature of your scholarship would mean we were planning for an event that wouldn't take place for three or more years. Maybe it was superstition but planning that far ahead would have meant admitting we were both interested in being together that long and beyond.

So we continued to spend all of our limited free time together. And before I knew it you had a drawer at my place and a pretty pink toothbrush found its way next to mine in the bathroom. It felt natural, the steady transition from living separately to cohabitating.

It was late one evening that I turned to where you were sitting in the bed next to me, solid black frames on your face. You were chewing on the cap of a highlighter and reading a book on differential diagnostics for a class. I was on my laptop, trying to tidy some tracks for a potentially major gig I had the next weekend.

There was something so urgently domestic about it all. I remember my eyes drifting from your form to my closet, half of which was filled with your things. If I had walked out of my room I knew I would have found your coat hanging next to mine on a hook by the door. Several copies of _Gray's Anatomy_ would be placed haphazardly on my kitchen table. A pair of your shoes were more than likely in the least convenient place possibly, and I would probably and inevitably trip on them on my way out in the morning.

"You should tell your landlord to lease your apartment," I said, my attention solely on you as you highlighted a piece of the text before capping your marker.

You shrugged, turning your attention toward me. "And why can't we keep my apartment?" You asked as though we had had this conversation hundreds of times when in reality this was the very first time we had ever even tiptoed near it.

"Doesn't make sense to move all my stuff and all of the stuff you have here when all you have to do is throw some clothes in a suitcase and you're done. Besides you love my apartment _and_ my apartment's balcony," I argued.

"Well it is much closer to campus and the hospital," you uncapped your highlighter again, your eyes pouring over the text. "And I do love your balcony."

"I knew it," I mock gasped, "you're totally using me for my balcony."

You laughed, "It _is_ a nice balcony."

And that was that. I wasn't joking when I said all you would need to move out of your apartment was a suitcase. An additional couple of boxes and said suitcase later, your apartment was set for the sublet.

You moved in and there were hardly any differences in our lives at all, there was hardly a transition at all considering how much time you spent at my apartment.

And I loved knowing my apartment was our apartment, I loved coming home to you singing along to some crummy pop song on the radio, I loved that your textbooks were scattered all over through the apartment.

I loved all of it and I was worried that maybe we were becoming that couple that only wanted to spend time with each other. Yet each time that thought popped into my head I would remember that we always spent most of the summer months apart.

You would disappear each summer for what felt like some ungodly amount of time but was in reality no more than a month and a half each time. Each time you left, I would mope about the apartment for several days before forcing myself back to productivity. It was ridiculous. I was pathetic. I felt like a protagonist in some Nicholas Sparks novel and that thought scared the living daylights out of me.

I finally had to admit to myself that there was no going back. I was so completely in love with you that there had probably never been any hope for me in the first place. Sure, we had exchanged the obligatory _I love you'_s around our six month anniversary, both wanting it to mean something.

But this, this was another being entirely. I didn't just love you, I needed you. I didn't just need you, I was miserable without you. I wasn't just in love in with you, I wanted to love you forever. And that wouldn't be a simple task.

For whatever reason, I felt like you were keeping something from me. I had never met your parents. We hardly ever spoke about your family at all. I knew you had three brothers, but nothing more than their names. It was odd. You were an exceptionally open person about every other subject except your family.

I didn't push it. I knew how difficult family could be. You, of course, had already met the disjointed menagerie I called family when you came home with me for Christmas one year, but we never discussed yours.

I set the subject aside, hoping you would discuss it when you were comfortable enough. So I basked in the months we did spend together, pleased that those months made up the majority of the year.

It should have been difficult finding time for each other given our busy schedules. I was spending more and more time in the recording studio, finally given a chance when a producer had seen one of my sets. You were in your fourth year of medical school which sufficiently explained your lack of free time. Somehow though, it wasn't. It wasn't difficult for us to be together. Everything almost felt too simple.

It was the sixth of January when I realized it had been a masquerade all along, it had never been simple. You were set to graduate in the spring with honors, if you had anything to say about it. I was reading the newspaper and munching happily on a bowl of cereal when a stern knock at the door grabbed my attention. You were still asleep, having rolled into bed late last night after getting stuck at the hospital on a particularly tiresome rotation.

I walked swiftly to the door, not giving a second thought to the short sleep boxers and loose tank top I was wearing. My hair was ratted and probably a lost cause. Who was I trying to impress anyways. I checked the peephole, my brow furrowing as I observed the man before me.

Pulling the deadbolt and opening the door, I surveyed the young man in front of me.

"Can I help you?" I asked taking note of his camouflage attire in an outfit I would learn was called a MCCUU, and the hard expression on his face. He was a military man, the _US Marines _patch on his shoulder told me as much. His eyes narrowed slightly when I reached them and I realized he had been observing me the same as I had him.

"That depends," he started, his voice a gruff and low rumble, "I'm looking for Chloe Beale. I was told I could find her here."

"And who exactly told you that?" I questioned, trying to place the man's face. It was oddly familiar, yet I knew I had never met him before.

"Just, is she here?" He asked, his voice quiet. "I've had a hell of a week and I need to see her."

My heart stopped in its chest. Was this the reason you hadn't brought me to meet your family? My mind raced off on a hundred tangents. Were you betrothed already? Were you _married_ already? Were you using me as a distraction to wait until he came home?

"Bec, who are you talking to?" Your sleep-riddled voice sounded behind me. Your eyes were tiny slits, a clear sign that you had just woken up. You walked up to the door, placing a hand on my waist as you faced the opening.

I watched your eyes widen as they landed on the man standing ramrod straight in front of us. "Garrett?" You asked, your voice unsure.

"Ceci," he confirmed, a small grin breaking across his face. You nearly leapt into his arms. He picked you up easily and spun you around, your laughter mixing in the hall and no doubt annoying the hell out of our neighbors. It was in that moment that I truly thought that maybe some of my mind's tangents were true.

"I can't believe you're here, Gare Bear," you said and I winced at the easy use of the pet name.

But it was odd considering you told me you hated stupid pet names. Maybe he was the reason you hated them. They reminded you of your soldier husband or boyfriend or whatever the hell he was.

He chuckled, "You're the first one I had to see when I touched down. And as much as I'd love to continue this conversation, your neighbors are probably going to kill me unless we take this inside."

I nearly scoffed, a scowl forming on my features as you took his hand and led him into our apartment. How were you being so blasé about this?

You smiled over happily at me, for what reason I wasn't sure. I raised an eyebrow at you.

"Oh," you said, slapping your hand to your forehead. "Garrett, there's someone I want you to meet." My frown deepened. The hell if I was shaking the hand of the guy that was taking you away from me.

"This is Beca, my girlfriend," you said, trying to step closer to me. I didn't move. Who did he think he was, standing there all patriotic looking in my kitchen. All he needed was mother effing golden bald eagle on his shoulder and he could be on some poster. He could be the new Uncle Sam. I was actually a little disappointed he wasn't as creepy as the original.

"Bec this is Garrett, my brother." If that son of a bitch thought he was taking you without a fight then…

Wait- "Brother?" My voice squeaked on the word.

I looked between the two of you. I nearly kicked myself when the similarities seemed to present themselves. He had blonde hair where you had red, but your eyes were the same deep blue. Your noses sloped in the same pattern. Where his jaw was angled, yours was soft, but both held a similar mold.

"Yeah, my brother," you chirped cheerily. "Why, who'd you think he was?"

I looked down to the patch on his chest opposite the one that proclaimed him a part of the US Marines, it read_ Beale. _

I groaned and then mumbled inaudibly, hoping you would let this go. You didn't. You crossed your arms in front of your chest waiting for my response.

"I may have possibly, kind of, maybe assumed he was your betrothed," I said quickly in the hopes that you wouldn't comprehend.

"Sick. Betrothed?" Your brother asked the same time you muttered, "Gross."

"What is this, the 1800's?" Your brother asked with a smile on his face. You looked at me knowingly.

"Did you fall asleep watching _Game of Thrones _again last night?" You asked.

"Maybe…?"

I usually didn't care for TV but I always had trouble falling asleep when you were out late studying or at the hospital. I realized exactly how pathetic I was for not being able to sleep without you but after admitting it to myself I had found sure fire ways for me to fall asleep. Like TV and movies. Put me right to sleep every time. And apparently my subconscious was picking up vocabulary here and there. Go figure.

"Was that what the whole stink eye was about for the past five minutes?" You asked.

"It wasn't stink eye," I defended although I was pretty certain that was probably an accurate description of my facial features.

"No, it totally was. Your face got all scrunched up and you were trying to look intimidating but it's kind of difficult to be intimidated when you look so damn adorable."

"I do _not_ look adorable. I'm incredibly intimidating," I scowled at you.

"Of course you are," you placated.

I glared at you. It only caused you to smile and bite your lip to keep your laughter in. I huffed petulantly.

"You're doing it again," you said.

"Doing what?" I asked, steeling my features.

"Trying to look intimidating but really just looking adorable."

I shook my head at you.

You smiled happily and stepped over to where I was standing. You planted a kiss on my cheek and I wasn't able to contain my smile anymore. "I can be intimidating," I affirmed.

"Yes dear," you simply nodded. "Of course you can." I wrapped my arms around you.

"Wow," Garrett's voice broke us out of our little bubble. We both turned, startled, remembering that he was in the room. "You two are absolutely sickening." He smirked over at us, his eyes glinting as he watched us.

"Oh shut it Garrett, like you and Rachel are any better when you're together. Speaking of which, she is going to castrate you when she finds out you came here first."

Garrett put his hands protectively in front of his pants, wincing. "Geez Ce, you don't just use that word lightly. And I may have lied when I said I came here first. Rach met me at the airport, we went back to a hotel, she's shopping right now but coming here afterwards."

"I was going to say, six months and your first stop is your sister's apartment? Then again you never did have any game," you said a smug grin on your face.

Your brother reeled back, clutching at his chest dramatically. "Ouch, baby sis. You wound me."

"You just got back today though?" You asked.

"Yeah, this morning. Took the early flight in."

"And she's okay with letting you out of her sight?" I couldn't help asking. "Sorry, it's just you've probably been gone a long time. Thought you'd want to spend all your time together," I finished lamely, scratching the back of my neck. I wasn't exactly making the best first impression.

You took my hand, smiling assuredly at me.

"No you're definitely right, she just said she had to pick something up." He leaned forward, whispering loudly, "It's my birthday next week, I think she forgot to get me a birthday gift." He pulled back, posture returning to military perfection. "Besides this is my fourth tour, we can stand to be apart for a couple of hours." He went over to the nearby table, resting against it.

"Don't worry, you'll get a hang of it when the time comes," he directed the statement at me. "Rachel and Natalie will help you along when this little one takes her first trip to the desert," he said, ruffling your hair up playfully.

"What do you mean 'when the time comes?'" I asked, completely confused. He pulled back, his jaw slack, his eyes swiftly moving between the two of us.

"Ce," Garrett said disapprovingly, "You still haven't told her?"

I turned my gaze on you. You were looking anywhere but me, your bottom lip trapped carefully between your teeth.

"I thought after the last time we talked you would have finally grown a pair, you told me you were going to talk to her and tell her," he rumbled through his words, obviously having said something he wasn't supposed to.

"Tell me what?" I asked, my frustration building. "Garrett?" He shook his head in a way that told me he didn't think it was his place. "Chloe?" Your eyes shifted from side to side but never met mine. "Chloe? What is he talking about?"

And so you finally told me. You told me your father was a marine, as was his father before him. You told me your mom was a nurse in the Navy which is where she met your father. They were both retired now but all of your brothers in the military, your cousins too. In fact, most of your family was in some branch of the military.

You told me that the Air Force was paying for your school. They gave you four years of school all expenses paid and you gave them four years of service. It was a decision you made before we started dating and at the time you hadn't known how to bring it up. You told me you didn't want to scare me off.

You opted for a partial civilian residency further postponing your service. It gave us two more years, but soon you were scheduled to complete your residency with the Air Force. You would be on active duty for four years. Four years. And you had already chosen a specialty that would almost guarantee you a place near the front lines: trauma surgery.

I briefly lost my temper when I made that connection. You were there, calmly talking me down, trying to explain why you had put off having the discussion in all the time that we were dating. And suddenly I had almost all of my questions answered.

That month and a half you'd disappear each summer was for a required 45 day officer training. You were hesitant to introduce me to your family since they were all military and were sure to being up your promise for service. The Air Force was paying for your school and giving you a stipend to live off.

You said that the military always needed more doctors. You said that people were dying every day because there weren't enough doctors. You said that Beales had been in the military since the Great War. So I asked you to marry me, hoping that maybe if you were Chloe Mitchell instead of Chloe Beale you wouldn't have to leave. But you had already signed a contract and even if you signed it long before you even saw me coming it still sidled into my mind and pushed rational thought out.

"Hey," Jesse started softly, wrapping a loose arm around my shoulder. "She didn't _leave_ you, leave you. She's off in some desert saving lives like the badass trauma surgeon that she is. You knew this was going to happen."

I did. And after you completed two years of residency, you were deployed for your first tour. It seemed every rational thought I ever possibly had flew into that desert with you because as much as I knew you had left me and that you weren't _leaving_ me I was having difficulty differentiating between the two.

"Yeah, it just sucks."

Jesse nodded and gave me a sympathetic smile. He reached into his coat pocket and handed me something. It was a juice box.

"Seriously?" I asked, looking down at it. What grown man carries juice boxes around in his coat pockets? Jesse shot me a boyish grin. He was such a child. "You are so weird."

Jesse walked me to my car and I drove the short distance from my studio home. Pulling up to the familiar barrier I smiled as one of the guards approached my car window.

"Sampson, how are you?" I asked congenially, handing him my pass as was protocol.

"Mrs. Mitchell, working late tonight?" The young man queried, stooping to my level. He was one of my favorite guards at the entrance for the Air Force base we lived on. He blurted out how much he loved my music one of the first times he was working.

He had served two tours already but was given a permanent home position after a traumatic experience. It was several months later that I found out he had lost every man in his squad after a late night ambush. He was the only to live. My music, he said, was enough to keep his mind off the horrors that often invaded his mind.

Ever since then I had been running mixes here and there by him, giving him sneak peeks of my work. He was incredibly musically inclined so when he did make suggestions they were normally just what the mixes needed.

"Trying to get a couple of songs sent out to artists before the end of the week," I informed him as he handed me back the pass.

"Alright well don't you go working too hard now, you hear me?" He tried in what was probably meant to be an authoritative tone but was hard for me to contrive it as such. Despite the hardened lines of his face that told you that he had seen more than most people saw their entire lives, the boy looked like he was still in high school.

"I would never," I lightly replied and he motioned for me to continue through. I followed the road, making turns occasionally before pulling into the garage of our home.

We were given the option of housing in an apartment, town home, or house on the base and had opted for the house since it provided a sense of normalcy we had been striving for since you started your service. It was one of the perks of being married; you weren't forced to live in dorm housing like all of the other single members of the Air Force.

Of course, normalcy hardly did me any good without you to share it with. You told me that it comforted you knowing I was living on the base and I wasn't naïve enough to think all of those soldiers popping in on a whim were simply stopping by. You had people checking in on me, making sure I was safe while I was constantly wishing I could do the same.

We wrote letters because they were as timeless as everyone always said and sometimes they were more certain than an internet connection could be. I would send you the tracks I was most proud of and the tracks I wasn't sure about. We communicated often but not often enough, there could never be anything called too often.

Technology was kind. Skype was great and made me feel so much better than any email sent because at least with Skype I could see that you were okay, I could see that you were still in one piece, I could physically see that you weren't falling apart.

We mostly Skyped on Mondays as you the most free time on those days, but today was different. Today was much different. Today was our anniversary, both wedding and relationship.

It had worked out accordingly and somehow the dates aligned and we were able to match the two up. A mega-anniversary, you had called it as though it would catch on and everyone would start celebrating it. Today was the first day we would be spending our anniversary apart.

You had swapped shifts with a friend in order to block out time for our Skype date. You told me 8:30 PM and I accepted not entirely comprehending how the time change worked even after suffering through it for the past five months.

Math and I? Not best friends.

I flicked the lights on and the click echoed through the empty kitchen. Sighing, I glanced at the clock and realized I only had ten minutes before that time.

When I was younger, I was always fine with being alone. I actually enjoyed it. But now… now I could only think about how being alone never felt this lonely before I met you.

Sure, I had Jesse and Aubrey, your brother's wives were always popping in with your brothers in tow when they were back between tours, my coworkers had quickly become friends, and I had enough connections from over the years. I had plenty of support and plenty of friends and family surrounding me, but it wasn't the same.

I logged onto Skype on my laptop, slouching into my favorite arm chair. You weren't online yet so I pulled up a demo from a new artist looking for a producer. It was choppy, but the vocals were smooth. The bass player needed a lesson or two but sometimes if bands were lacking the guitarist would double up and lay down the bass line at another time. They could be great guitarists but shitty bass players. I didn't like working with people without raw talent. Autotune and overly edited voices weren't my game. I'd have to see how they were live.

I wrote an email to the band, inquiring when their next gig was. I exited out of the window, my eyes scanning to see you still weren't online. I was still a couple of minutes early so I sent you a quick message telling you to call when you signed on.

You were normally incredibly punctual. I would say that it was a product of the military but you had always been that way. It was probably more a product of your childhood in a military family. My eyes fell on a picture above the mantle.

It was one of those corny beach pictures that were practically a requirement for couples to have. It was taken a couple of days into our short-lived honeymoon. It was cut short by your residency beginning, but we had enough time to visit a North Carolina beach.

I missed you. I missed you and I wanted you back home. I didn't want to spend every day wondering if you were okay, if you were doing well, if you were safe. I didn't want to have to settle for your image on a computer screen any longer, but I didn't have a choice.

I was in love with you. And it was only four years. Four long, excruciatingly long years and I was barely making it through the first. I didn't have a clue how I was supposed to survive this without you.

Sometimes it felt like talking to you on Skype was counterproductive for my reserve. Hearing your laugh, seeing you smile, listening to you talk only reminded me of the distance.

When the internet connection wasn't strong enough for Skype and I could only hear your voice I would pretend that you were at the hospital down the road. I would pretend that you were calling to ask me what we should have for dinner or to say that you were just leaving the hospital and that you would be home soon.

It helped, momentarily, to pretend. But pretending could only get you so far and pretending never actually brought you home to me.

I looked down at my wrist watch.

_8:36 PM_

You were late. Granted, it was only six minutes late, but you were still late. And that never happened. You were normally early.

I took a deep breath knowing that being six minutes late wasn't a true reason to panic. Maybe you were held over on a surgery or paper work and you were running a little late.

I grabbed the remote for the TV and flicked it on for some white noise in the background. I browsed the channels, finally selecting some random HBO series marathon.

My lack of sleep from the past couple of days was finally catching up to me as my eyes grew heavier. I turned my computer's volume as high as it could go so it would wake me when you called and decided to allow myself a mini nap.

My body grew heavier as I relaxed. The low hum of the TV in the background soothed me as I drifted farther and farther away.

XXXXXXXXX

My eyes flew open and I immediately realized the mini nap must have evolved into a major nap.

_1:35 AM_

My watch told me.

Shit. Shit. Double shit.

My eyes flew down to the computer in my lap. A black screen told me I was out long enough for the computer to hibernate. I moved the mouse frantically hoping that you didn't think I had stood you up for our Skype date.

I opened the Skype tab expecting to see multiple missed calls and messages.

There were none. My brow furrowed as I closed and reopened the application. Clicking on your name I saw you hadn't attempted to call once. You hadn't even sent a message. I pulled up my email thinking maybe you had to cancel for some reason and couldn't get to your computer.

There were a few emails that were work related and one checking up on me from Garrett, but none from you.

Reaching for my phone, I unlocked the screen to see that I had no missed calls.

I felt my heart skip a beat as my mind turned down a dark path of possible scenarios that had made you miss the date. It was our anniversary. You wouldn't have taken an extra shift or stayed longer than you had to.

My mind scanned back to the last time we had talked, nearly a week ago, when you had told me that you had something special planned for today. It made no sense that you wouldn't have done everything in your power to get to your computer.

The only other option, and it was an option I desperately didn't want to consider, was that this was out of your power.

My head spun as I thought about the base you were stationed at being raided, ambushed, bombed. I pulled open a tab on my web browser and brought up CNN's homepage. I scoured it for any signs of unrest in the Middle East. I let out a breath of relief when I saw no top headlines denoting anything of that matter.

My eyes flicked to a flashing red box at the top of the screen. Text scrolled across the header.

_TRUCK BOMB KILLS 8 US SOLDIERS, INJURES TWELVE IN KARBALA._

All of the air in my lungs was forced out. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't take in any air. My eyes flooded with tears. It couldn't be. It couldn't have been you.

_"We're on the move again after this week. They haven't penned out the assignment though, probably getting us closer to Baghdad like Balad or Karbala or somewhere."_

You had told me. You had told me you might be moved to Karbala sometime in the next week, but that couldn't have been you. There was no way. You weren't a combat soldier, you were a surgeon. They wouldn't have you anywhere near something like this.

They couldn't have you anywhere near this. Something else must have come up, maybe you were treating the injured. That had to be it, you had to be treating the injured and with twelve injured they needed all hands on deck. They wouldn't have cared that it was our anniversary and that you had promised you would be there. They wouldn't have cared and they wouldn't have let you into a truck with a bomb in it.

They couldn't have. God please, they couldn't have. I shut my laptop, knowing no names would be released before the family had been notified.

I staggered uneasily upstairs and fell into our bed. I grabbed blindly for your pillow and buried my face in it.

Your scent had long since faded from the fabric but I needed to pretend it was still there. I needed to pretend that you were okay. I needed to pretend that something had come up and that you were in a surgery and unable to contact me. I needed to pretend because I didn't want to think about what reality could be.

You had to be okay. You _had_ to be. I would know if something had happened, I would have felt something. I would know if something had happened to you.

Someone would have contacted me if something had happened. They would have come to our door, no matter the hour and told me. They wouldn't have let me find out from the internet.

No, you had to be okay. I didn't know what I'd do if you weren't okay. You were supposed to come home. You were supposed to come home soon and then I would know you were okay, I would know you were safe for a month's time before you had to leave again. I needed that month. I deserved that month. That was why you had to be okay. You _had_ to be.

A sob escaped my throat, another trailing easily in its wake.

You were okay. You _had_ to be.

My eyes overflowed with tears.

It was only supposed to be four years. Four years and then we were going to move on and have kids and live in some house with a white picket fence because you've always been corny enough to want one. It was only supposed to be four years.

You _had_ to be okay.

I drifted in and out of sleep unsure of which scared me more. Sleep brought dreams of your death, of you injured, and of me unable to help. Reality was worse and impossible to even comprehend. Sleep mingled with the reality mixed in between and I could almost feel you beside me. I could almost feel your breath on my neck, your hand running softly through my hair. I could almost feel you, but I didn't dare open my eyes. I didn't dare open my eyes lest I be asleep.

The confusion was overwhelming.

I jerked awake after a particularly real flash of you getting into a truck only for it to blow not seconds later. I buried my face deeper into the pillow I was curled around, my eyes leaking tears again. I gave myself over to emotion and sobbed freely.

I cried harder at a light pressure over my waist. It wasn't fair that I drifted from nightmare to a dream of you beside me so seamlessly only to wake up alone again.

"Hey," your voice lightly sounded from behind me and I realized this was what going mad must feel like. I was losing my sanity one dream at a time.

You turned me around in your arms, cradling my head to your chest. I grasped, helplessly at the loose material of your shirt. I felt your lips press into my hair, your hands running softly up and down my back as you hummed softly.

This wasn't fair. I didn't want to wake up. I didn't want to wake up and know you weren't there. I didn't want to wake up and find out that you were in the middle of a desert possibly not truly there at all. This wasn't fair. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to hold onto this dream as long as possible.

"Did you have a bad dream?" You softly asked. I sobbed harder at the question. This whole thing was a bad dream. "Okay, okay Bec. You're alright. I've got you."

And I wondered if you would ever actually have me again. I wondered if I would survive the funeral, if I would survive the after. I wondered if all I would have left were dreams of you.

I felt you trying to pull back, but I held tightly onto you. This was my dream, the hell if I was letting you pull away.

I felt a low chuckle rumble through your chest where I was desperately clinging to you. You tried to pry my hands free but I shook my head, eyes still closed. Dream you even smelled like you. The scent invaded my senses.

Maybe this was normal. Maybe God gave you one last moment with the person you loved before taking it all away. Maybe that was why it was so visceral, so real.

I don't think I could do any of this this without you.

Your fingers trailed down my face. You coaxed my face away from your chest, pausing to wipe some of the tears off my face. I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to wake up.

"You going to open those beautiful blue eyes for me, Bec?" I shook my head. I needed this. I needed more time with you and if this was it… if this was it then I was going to take every second I could. "Please?"

I couldn't.

Suddenly, I felt your breath trail down my face. It reached my lips for the briefest of moments before I felt your lips press against mine. I moaned at the contact and immediately reciprocated. I felt your tongue tap gently against my lips and I granted it entrance. Your hands tangled in my hair, pulling me closer. My hands remained firmly attached to the front of your shirt.

You lightly pushed me onto my back, covering my body with your own while never letting your lips part from mine. As you settled, one of your thighs parted my legs and moved to rest between them. I moaned at the contact, my head jerking forward crashing our foreheads together. My eyes popped open at the pain.

"Shit," you laughed, a hand cupped tenderly over your forehead. I shook my head. That didn't make any sense. "I guess we're a little rusty."

It didn't make any sense that I would dream anything short of perfect. We shouldn't have been rusty at all. If this were a dream, there shouldn't have been any awkward forehead bumps.

My hand floated towards your face, where I reverently drew a thumb across your cheek. You looked tired, exhausted even. A sloppy grin stretched your lips. Deep, dark purple circles underlined your bloodshot eyes. That didn't make any sense either. Your baby blues found my own and I was held captive.

Why did you look so exhausted? If this were a dream you wouldn't look like you were ready to collapse at any given moment.

I let my eyes fall lower and I noticed you were in rumpled camouflage ABUs. My fingers fell to the patch above your right breast, the name _Mitchell _stitched neatly there.

Why were you in your ABU? That didn't many any sense either. My brow furrowed deeper. Your thumb migrated to the valley between my eye brows and gently smoothed it.

None of this made any sense unless… "You're here," I uttered breathlessly.

You tilted your head to the side and gave me an amused smile. "Of course I'm here," you said.

"No, you're _here_. You're actually here," I said trying to get you to understand the gravity of the situation.

You were actually here. You weren't in that godforsaken desert. You weren't in that truck in Karbala. You weren't in some flag covered coffin on a plane flying home now. You were home. You were here in our home, in our bed, on top of me. You were safe.

"Yeah Bec, I'm here and I'm sorry I didn't get here in time for our date last night," my eyes snapped up to see a guilty look cross your face. "My last flight got bumped and I had no way of contacting you from the tiny little island we were stuck on."

"You were coming back?" I asked in disbelief. You were coming back to me.

You misinterpreted my short, choppy sentence as annoyance and began rambling, "I talked my way into getting back here early and working on research with someone at the hospital and I was planning on being back tomorrow but then the plane broke and we had to wait for the next flight going out which took ages and there was no cell phone reception or landlines or anything where we were."

"I thought you were dead," the words tumbled from my mouth as my hand cupped your cheek.

You pulled back in confusion. "You- What? Why?"

"You weren't online, you didn't call, and you were late. You're never late. Then I went on CNN and I saw there had been a truck bomb in Karlaba and I-" The words caught in my throat. My eyes flooded with tears again. "I thought you weren't coming back."

You wordlessly pulled me in close. I buried my face in your neck, breathing in the essence of you. You were _here_.

You moved us so you were laying on your back, my head resting above the name patch that informed everyone you were mine.

We lay in easy silence until my tears ebbed. I let my hand find yours and laced our fingers together, taking comfort in the action.

I felt you take a deep breath in before you started talking.

"I'm sorry I missed our anniversary," your words were melancholy personified. You played idly with my fingers as you spoke.

"Don't be," I said firmly. "It's just another day and if I get to spend the day after it with you then that is so much better than a video call on the actual day."

Another silence drifted in before you broke it again.

"I should have let you know I was coming back."

"And miss the chance to give me a heart attack? You don't pass on opportunities like that," I said convincingly, a smirk on my face.

It was enough to make you laugh lightly.

"I missed you," you whispered as though it was more to yourself than me.

"Good, because I missed the hell out of you. I was worried maybe you found something better over there and weren't coming back," I said half-serious.

"Never," was your one word reply.

And in that answer I knew. I somehow knew that you were always going to do everything in your power to make it back to me. I knew we could make it through these four years because despite the intricacies of the situation and the world surrounding us none of that mattered.

That day you finally told me about your commitment to the Air Force, I had thought that our underlying difficulty was masquerading itself in the simplicity and relative ease of our relationship. I had thought that nothing would ever be simple again.

But it was simple all along and I hadn't realized it. It was simple because it didn't matter how much distance was between us or how much time we spent apart because you were in my life and I was better for it. It was simple because I never needed any of the intricacies of the world. All I needed was you. And all I needed was for you to come home to me. I would wait much longer than four years if it meant you would be home.

**A/N: So what do you think? Longer one shot here. First of all, thanks to everyone that gave it a read. I hope it didn't disappoint. I'd love to get some feedback, favorite quotes, ramblings on life as always anything and everything is welcome in that little box below. Don't feel like you need an account to review! **

**Something to note: I am not in the military, so all information I've got has been provided by my limited knowledge of some friend's experiences and my own research. The residency split thing… more than likely not an actual thing so I used a couple of creativity points for that one.**

**Oh and if some of the acronyms threw you:**

**MCCUU: The Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform**

**ABU: Airman Battle Uniform**

**Google is a lovely tool for images of both.**

**Special thanks to any and all of those who have served in the armed forces and their spouses. It's one hell of a sacrifice and they all too often don't get the thanks they deserve.**


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